Communications networks are widely used to communicate voice, video, multimedia and/or data. Communications network providers may invest large sums of money in the infrastructure that is used to provide a communications network. In order to optimize this investment, it may be desirable to dimension the network, so that neither overcapacity nor under-capacity is provided for the voice, video, multimedia and/or data communications.
Dimensioning of a connection-oriented (circuit switched) network may be relatively simple because a user is allocated a circuit by provision and/or by on-demand signaling. It may, thus, be relatively straightforward to dimension these circuits.
In contrast, in a connectionless communications network, also referred to herein as a packet switched communications network, a specific circuit allocation may not be provided. Thus, it may be more difficult to dimension the elements of the network. As is well known to those having skill in the art, a packet switched communications network includes a plurality of nodes that are interconnected by a plurality of links. A plurality of ports are connected to the packet switched communications network.
It is known to dimension the links in a packet switched communications network by measuring link utilization and increasing link capacity when link utilization crosses a threshold. Unfortunately, this technique may lead to an “all you can eat” effect, wherein the network operator or provider keeps increasing capacity as more traffic is sent, with little or no leverage to increase revenue. This business model for connectionless services may not be economically sustainable.